University Presidents Claim Disclosure Of Evaluations On SAB Was Illegal

According to KX News, Minot State University president David Fuller is claiming the disclosure of his evaluation on this blog was illegal because he hadn’t had a chance to review it yet. And it appears he has a point. State law does require that state employees (it’s funny to hear a university president actually admit that they work for the taxpayers for once) have a chance to review evaluations before they’re made public.

For what it’s worth, all I did was file an open records request. I had learned that the evaluations were done and had been sent to the presidents, and I contacted NDUS spokeswoman Linda Donlin to obtain a copy, and apparently I wasn’t the first one to request them. “I just got these as a result of another request,” she said after a quick response to my request.

Indeed, a couple of hours after I posted the evaluations, the news was all over the rest of the state media. I was first, but I wasn’t the only one on the story.

If there was anything illegal about the disbursement of the evaluations, it wasn’t my doing, though you really have to admire the politically deft way bureaucrats like Fuller deflect criticism. If I had one criticism of Chancellor Shirvani, it’s that he wasn’t nearly as deft at political games as the university presidents he was tasked with supervising.

On a related note, I always have to chuckle when traditional media outlets leave out mention of me or the blog in their reports. As if everyone doesn’t already know who they’re talking about. Not to be conceited, but in North Dakota SAB isn’t “a blog” it is the blog.